COMMON EUROPEAN PRINCIPLES for VALIDATION of NON-FORMAL and INFORMAL LEARNING

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COMMON EUROPEAN PRINCIPLESforVALIDATION
ofNON-FORMAL andINFORMAL LEARNING

• Michel FEUTRIE
• Bergen, 29/04/05

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Background
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The lifelong learning perspectiveopened by the
white paper (1995)

• European countries have to put in place by 2006
  lifelong learning strategies
• Identification and validation is an important
  part of realising the vision of lifelong learning
  
• In particular making  visible  what we learn
  outside formal education and training
• Recognition of a diversity of learning situations
  and settings
• Looking for credibility and authenticity of what
  is learnt outside formal learning and training
  situations

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The launch of the Lisbon process (March 2000)

• A strategic goal for the European Union to
   become the most competitive and dynamic
  knowledge-based economy in the world by 2010 
• The development of common European principles for
  validation of non formal and informal learning is
  an important element of this strategy, it aims at
  greater visibility and more balanced valuing of
  knowledge and competences

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The Copenhagen declarationNovember 2002

• In Copenhagen the 31 Ministers of Education and
  Training, the European social partners and the
  Commission stated that there was a need
•  to develop a set of common principles for
  validation of non-formal and informal learning
  with the aim of ensuring greater comparability
  between approaches in different countries and at
  different levels .

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The agenda

• An expert group, so-called  Working Group H ,
  appointed by the Commission in February 2003
• A final proposal by the Working Group H in March
  2004
• A proposition by the Commission in May 2004
• Draft conclusions on 14 May 2004 of the Council
  of the European Union and of the representatives
  of Governments of Member States
• Conference of European Ministers of Education in
  Oslo on 24-25 June 2004

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Glossary of key words in use in European papers
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Identification

• The process by which the candidates
• - analyse their own experience (at workplace or
  elsewhere)
• produce elements and evidence required by
  evaluators
• This requires them to become conscious of what
  they have learnt through their different
  experiences, to verbalise, to formalise, to
  organise
• This process creates continuity in what is
  discontinuous in the candidates experience

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Validation of non-formal/informal learning

• The process of assessing and recognising a wide
  range of knowledge, know-how, skills and
  competences which people develop throughout their
  lives in different contexts

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Recognition

• Formal recognition the process of granting
  official status to competences, either
• through the award or certificates or
• through the grant of equivalence, credit units,
  validation of gained competences
• Social recognition through acknowledgement of
  the value of competences by economic and social
  stakeholders

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Non formal learning

• Learning which is embedded in planned activities
  not necessarily explicitly designated as learning
  (in terms of learning objectives, learning time
  or learning support), but which contains an
  important learning element.
• Non formal learning is intentional from the
   learners  point of view

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Informal learning

• Learning resulting from daily work-related,
  family or leisure activities. It is not organised
  and structured (in terms of objectives, time and
  support).
• Informal learning is in most cases unintentional
  from the  learners  perspective.

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 Working Group H 

• Making learning attractive and strengthening
  links between education work and society

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Participation in Group H

• Representatives of 31 European countries
• European social partners
• Representatives of NGOs
• Members of the Commission

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Objectives

•  The principles should stimulate validation of
  non-formal and informal learning at national
  level and support a voluntary process leading
  towards more coherent and comparable validation
  practices in Europe 
• The main focus is on three areas of validation
• validation of learning taking place in relation
  to formal education
• validation of learning taking place in relation
  to labour market
• validation of learning taking place in relation
  to voluntary and civil society activities as well
  as in community learning

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Why common European principles ?

• According to the Copenhagen declaration the main
  motivation for developing such principles is to
  strengthen the comparability (and thus
  compatibility) of approaches at different levels
  and in different contexts which have been defined
  in isolation
• To contribute to the communication across
  national, sector, institutional boarders
• To support and extend credit transfer system
  developed within formal education and training
  systems (e.g. ECTS)

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Common European principles

• They are a guide for development and
  implementation of methods and systems for
  validation
• They do not prescribe any particular
  methodological or institutional solution
• They are a set of basic requirements
• They are organised according to 6 main themes

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1 The purpose of validation

• Validation of learning outcomes, irrespective of
  where these have been acquired
• aims at making visible the full range of
  knowledge and competences held by an individual
• supports lifelong learning, employability and
  active citizenship
• May provide formal recognition
• May lead to personal recognition

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2 Individual entitlements

• Validation must be voluntary
• In cases where validation is part of a compulsory
  system arrangements should ensure transparency,
  fairness and privacy
• In organisations validation should be based on
  social dialogue
• Individuals must have the right to appeal a
  validation result

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• Special provisions should be designed for
  individuals with special needs
• The results of validation must be the property of
  individuals
• Where validation is part of human resources
  management the privacy of the individual must be
  ensured

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3 Responsibilities of institutions and
stakeholders

• Results of validation must be presented in such a
  way that they can be understood at European and
  international level
• The privacy of the individual must be respected
• Validation must be supported by information,
  guidance and counselling services

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• Education and training systems, enterprises,
  public organisations and economic sectors,
  non-formal organisations, including NGOs, should
  provide a legal and practical basis enabling
  individuals to have their learning validated
• Validation should be an integral part of human
  resources development in enterprises and public
  organisations and should be based on social
  dialogue

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4 Confidence and trust

• Transparency of procedures
• to give confidence to all
• methodologies for validation should be stated
  clearly
• clear information on time and cost
• Transparency of criteria
• Availability of, and access to, information

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5 Impartiality

• Assessors should operate according to a code of
  conduct
• Assessors must be professionally competent and
  have access to systematic initial and continuing
  training

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6 Credibility and legitimacy

• The development, implementation and financing of
  a mechanism for validation must involve all
  relevant stakeholders
• Validation bodies need to be impartial and shall
  involve all stakeholders significantly concerned
  without any interest predominating

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Draft conclusions of the Counciland of
representatives of the Governments of the Member
States meeting

• Dublin
• March 2004

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The Council and the representatives stress that

• Common principles are necessary to encourage and
  guide the development of high-quality,
  trustworthy approaches and systems for the
  identification and validation of non-formal and
  informal learning
• They are necessary to ensure the comparability
  and wide acceptance of different approaches and
  systems

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Invite the member states and the Commission

• To disseminate and promote the use of the common
  European principles
• To encourage social partners to use and adapt
  them for the specific needs of the workplace
• To encourage NGOs providing LLL opportunities to
  use and adapt them as appropriate
• To support the exchange of experiences and mutual
  learning
• To strengthen co-operation with international
  organisations to achieve synergies

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• To develop and support coherent and comparable
  ways of presenting the results of the
  identification and validation at European level
• To consider how instruments in the Europass
  framework can contribute to this
• To consider how these principles can contribute
  to the development of a European Qualifications
  Framework
• To support the development of quality assurance
  mechanisms, to disseminate good practices

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Conference of European Ministers of Education

•  Lifelong learning, from rhetoric to reality 
• Oslo June 2004

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Final communiqué

•  The EU Council conclusions on European
  principles for identification and validation of
  non-formal and informal learning should be used
  as reference point and baseline when exploring
  and developing suitable practical national
  solutions.
• The European Ministers support the emphasis of
  these principles on the entitlement of individual
  citizens to identification and validation, the
  importance of involving all relevant stakeholders
  in this process, and the need for quality
  assurance mechanisms to ensure credibility and
  trust 

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Two side approaches
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Joint action call for proposals

• Rationale
• LLL implies that qualifications and competences
  acquired at different stages of life and in
  different settings can be linked together in an
  efficient way
• It is agreed in general that existing
  certificates or diplomas are unable to fulfil
  this bridging role
• Efforts to increase the visibility and value of
  informal and non-formal learning highlights this
  problem even more

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• Proposals were supposed to look at the
  feasibility of a  credit transfer system 
  facing these new challenges and mobilising the
  experience acquired through Leonardo, Socrates
  and Youth programmes

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Transfine

• Transfine was the EUCENs answer to this call of
  proposal
• It ends with recommendations that have become
  part of the common principles accepted by
  representatives of European member States

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Europass

• A portfolio of documents  Europass  integrating
  identified European tools, open to the future
  inclusion of other documents
• Implementation of this framework through National
  Europass Centres (NEC) appointed to coordinate
  national bodies which are concerned, manage the
  information system, promote information and
  guidance, promote the portfolio and its documents

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Europass framework

• European CV
• Europass Mobilitas (replacing Europass training)
  to record European learning pathways
• Diploma supplement
• European language portfolio
• Certificate supplement

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Another point of view on common principles

• A step further ?
• From a guaranteed minimum
• To a pro-active strategy
• An invitation for initiatives

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The logic embedded in the identification and
validation of non-formal and informal learning

• From a weighting approach to a developmental
  approach
• From a fragmented approach to a global one not
  to consider separately but in interaction what is
  learnt in workplace or in voluntary organisations
  or in the family
• From a large diversity of standards and
  references to few references which allows
  comparability and transferability and guaranteed
  quality

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Who will benefit from validationof non-formal
and informal learning ?

• Individuals ?
• Enterprises, organisations ?
• Both ?
• Individuals as  producers  having to maintain
  their employability ?
• Individuals as  citizens , as active members of
  a community ?

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Common principles for improving results of
validation

• More money ?
• Employability ?
• Increased prestige ?
• Improved status ?
• Self-esteem ?

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Conclusion

• Validation is an interesting concept which raises
  new questions ? New issues ? New challenges ? For
  our institutions and for us. But we have to
  change our spectacles

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• Validation is an interesting concept because it
  is directly an European concept,
• a common issue with no traditions,
• with approaches that are still open to change,
• with methods, tools, offering good opportunities
  to work together, to share experiences, to
  reinforce each other